


hole in the head (and your heart full of dust)

by misura



Category: Core Scramble - Euho Jun
Genre: Accidental Bonding, M/M, Soul Bond, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 08:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21491503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Chaeun acquires a soul bond with Gayoon.
Relationships: Chaeun Shin/Moonhoo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	hole in the head (and your heart full of dust)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rose Argent (roseargent)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseargent/gifts).

Chaeun woke up with a pounding headache, a metallic taste in his mouth and the sense that something very, very bad had happened, which was somehow at once all his fault and _definitely not_ all his own fault.

His memories were a bit jumbled, too. He'd been on vacation with Moonhoo. He'd been destroying someone's apartment. He'd been giving his body time to recover from the dimensional poisoning. He'd been looking for some _worthless, good-for-nothing punk_.

He felt his stomach churn.

_At least I can stop thinking while I'm busy throwing up,_ he thought. That one was all his.

Or maybe not, given how Gayoon looked. He and Moonhoo had been glaring at one another, which Chaeun supposed at least meant that they hadn't been trying to kill each other.

"Again. What did you do to him?" Moonhoo asked.

Moonhoo was so incredibly _annoying, really, the two of them deserved each other._ Gayoon looked at Chaeun and sneered, and Chaeun wondered if his thoughts were in Gayoon's head, the same way Gayoon's seemed to be in Chaeun.

"Moonhoo," Chaeun said, swallowing. _I don't deserve this shit._ (Well. That could have been either of them, though if it had been Gayoon, Chaeun might beg to differ - apart from the bit where _he_ had gotten dragged into it too somehow). "I - I think this isn't his fault."

Gayoon was still sneering. They'd found him _doing perfectly well on his own_, facing off against a level S Bug and an asortment of lower level ones, and Chaeun had experienced a dizzying moment of feeling ... something.

He and Moonhoo - they'd told people to come get them if anything 'weird' happened. The Bugs, the Halls - all of those things were still kept a secret from most people. But Chaeun had wanted to do _something_, and this was the best he'd been able to come up with.

_"I have an ability. It may not be as strong as yours or - "_ (but he hadn't wanted to do Gayoon even so much as the honor of calling his name, Gayoon didn't deserve it, after everything he'd done, everything _Chaeun had built him up to be, like he was some sort of fucking hero_). _"But I want to use it to help people,"_ he'd said and Moonhoo had nodded, agreeing, and so when a Hall had opened nearby, someone'd come and gotten them.

Gayoon had somehow, impossibly, beaten them to it.

_"Tsk. What a show off,"_ Moonhoo had said. _"Oh well. Guess we can sit this one out."_

They hadn't, though, in the end. Chaeun might hate Gayoon, but he couldn't simply stand by and watch Gayoon get killed or even injured. _I'm not like you,_ he'd thought, catching Gayoon's gaze briefly, before he and Moonhoo had _completely unnecessarily_ moved in to help.

_I'm not like you._

Level S Bugs were always tricky. The S stood for Special - as in: Special Abilities. This one had sprayed some sort of poison when Chaeun had closed in on it, trying to locate its nuclei. Moonhoo had used his flames to drive it back, to burn the poison right out of the air, but a little of it must have gotten on his skin anyway - and on Gayoon's.

_If I hadn't stepped in, if I'd let Gayoon deal with it by himself - _ that still would have happened. Chaeun clung to that thought. In a weird way, he supposed it might almost be a good thing he'd ended up with Gayoon's thoughts in his head, instead of someone else's. Separating Gayoon's thoughts from his own was easy.

"Chaeun?" Moonhoo's arms were around him now, _glaring at me like this is _my_ fault somehow, even after the punk told him it wasn't._

Chaeun stepped back. "I - I'm not sure how to explain this." He'd never heard of anything like this happening, of a level S Bug with an ability that didn't kill or destroy but just ... put people inside each other's heads? _A telepathic soul bond._ Why would other dimensional beings want him and Gayoon to be able to hear each other's thoughts? Though of course, that wasn't _quite_ what was happening here. If it had only been that, Chaeun could've just - _run away, again, and after he'd gone through all that trouble of tracking him down_.

Moonhoo glanced from him to Gayoon and back again before he said, "Try."

Chaeun had tried, with a bit of _help_ from Gayoon. _As if Gayoon would ever help me,_ he thought (yup, still in charge in his own head). Moonhoo hadn't been able to do much, other than promise to ask around, see if anyone might have heard of something like this happening before.

"Hey. We're going to find a way to fix this," Moonhoo told him, kissing his forehead. "Just try and get a good night's sleep, all right?"

_Probably a good idea._ Chaeun tried to smile. "Sorry."

Moonhoo kissed him again. "Not your fault. Next time I tell you to leave that asshole alone, maybe you'll listen to me, hm?"

Chaeun smiled weakly. "Maybe."

"Liar," Moonhoo said, sounding _disgustingly soppy_. "So, would it be a bad idea to suggest you might sleep better with some company?"

Chaeun imagined having Gayoon in his head while he and Moonhoo - "I think - better not. Thank you."

"Any time," Moonhoo said. He sounded worried now, which made two of them. (_Why not three?_ Chaeun wondered, but no, even Gayoon wouldn't - that was crazy. Maybe Gayoon was asleep already, or simply didn't want to admit even to himself what he felt. That sounded much more likely. Gayoon probably hadn't worried a single day of his life.)

Gayoon was up already when Chaeun came down for breakfast the next day. He was reading a newspaper, the smell of fresh-made coffee filling the kitchen. He looked well-rested, relaxed.

Chaeun poured himself a cup of coffee. He'd dreamt of creating Halls, one after another, of watching the Bugs come through, to kill and destroy everything and everyone he couldn't care less about.

_At least he doesn't actually _hate_ all people. He's simply ... indifferent to everyone. Except me._

Gayoon looked up from his newspaper and sneered. 

Chaeun froze, cup of coffee in his hand. _He look like he wants to kill me. Or at least maim me a little._

Gayoon grimaced, like he'd bitten into something bitter and then he said, "Good morning."

Chaeun stared at him. It wasn't - sure, people told each other 'good morning' all the time, it was a perfectly normal thing to say to someone when you'd just woken up, but this was _Gayoon_. Chaeun found it had to imagine Gayoon had ever told someone 'good morning' in his life. Gayoon was not a 'good morning' kind of person.

_I bet he never even made any of his girlfriends breakfast._ Not that Chaeun was _at all_ interested in what Gayoon had or hadn't done with or for his girlfriends.

Gayoon scoffed and rose, throwing his newspaper on the table, walking out of the kitchen. Leaving his half-empty coffee cup for someone else to clean up. _That_ seemed in-character, at least.

"No," Gayoon said.

_Tch. Such a pain._ Chaeun's head hurt. "Look, Chief - " Great. Now he had both of them glaring at him. "I meant - it's a good opportunity. We should all go."

It didn't sound like a big Hall, but a Hall was a Hall, and a Hall was a chance to fix whatever had happened to him and Gayoon. Chaeun would've thought Gayoon would jump at the chance.

"Look," Moonhoo said, "it's not like we _want_ you along. Or here at all, to be perfectly honest."

"Feeling threatened?" Gayoon smirked.

"No. Do you know why? Because you - you're not a threat." Moonhoo's tone was even, calm. "You might have had a chance once, but you were too much of a moron to take it, and now it's too late. I don't feel threatened by you. I just dislike you. A lot."

"Funny. Me, I'd say I hate your guts," Gayoon said, still smirking. Caring made people weak. Emotions made people weak. Gayoon had no intention of being weak, of letting anything or anyone _make him_ weak. "So really, I think we're all be a lot happier if the two of you run off by yourselves."

Moonhoo looked at Chaeun, as if this was his call somehow, as if Gayoon had ever listened to a single request or plea he'd made.

"We can call him, if the Bug turns out to be a level S," Chaeun said. He didn't want - he'd had plenty of fighting with Gayoon there already, doing nothing, chatting up his girlfriend while people around him were - and then _leaving_ in the middle of a - when he'd given up _everything_, tried to be _nice_ even, honestly, what did it _take for that punk to_ -

Gayoon slammed his fist against a wall. His _left_ hand, _of course_, because Gayoon wouldn't want to risk injuring the hand he used for his magic.

"Do I want to know what just happened?" Moonhoo asked.

The bug had been level B - B for Beatable. Moonhoo had sealed the Hall, and Chaeun had watched him, thinking, _if Gayoon had been here, he could have destroyed it, make sure it'd never be a threat to anyone ever again_, and then he'd felt a little bit ashamed of himself.

"You know, we could hop on a plane and leg it," Moonhoo said.

Chaeun smiled. He liked that idea, he did - but he also didn't. "What if someone needs our help again?"

Moonhoo shrugged. "Gayoon can help them."

Chaeun chuckled and then he started laughing, as if anything about this situation was humorous, as if this was all one big joke.

Moonhoo smiled faintly. "Didn't think it was that funny, but I'll say it's nice to see you cheered up."

"You're coming along to help next time," Chaeun said. He'd thought about it for a long time, which Gayoon would know, of course - or did he? Chaeun realized he'd never really asked, that Gayoon had never said much about how this whole _telepathic soul bond_ worked on his side.

"Now why would I want to do that? Because you've asked me nicely?" Gayoon's expression was suggestive. "I suppose I might consider it if you were very, very convincing."

"You need us," Chaeun said. His chest felt tight. "You need us," he repeated. "Consider it payment for eating our food and drinking our coffee, if you want."

"I'll consider it." Gayoon sounded like he considered promising that much a big favor already.

The next time - _I've seen that type of Bug before_. Chaeun almost couldn't believe their luck. The odds of running into similar types of Bugs got lower the higher the level of the Bug was - Chaeun had seen at least a dozen different level A Bugs. Level S Bugs were always different. _Always._ Like whatever dwelled on the other side of the Halls made each one individually.

Except, it appeared, this one time. _Of course, that doesn't mean it's going to do us any good._ They might be able to get some of the liquid - enough to have it analyzed. Then, if they were lucky, someone might come up with a cure, but - _who?_

Clarus Orbis had shrunk down to a fraction of its former size, its research division almost shut down entirely, due to lack of money. Chaeun had felt a little bit bad about that, but not too much.

_They knew the risks. They profited long enough from endangering other people - _ but it had only been a few people at the top who'd known that, of course. _Gayoon knew._

"I can't believe I'm doing this for free," Gayoon said. He'd drawn his weapon.

"You're doing this for yourself," Moonhoo said. "That should be plenty of motivation, I'd think."

"I think you're idiots." Gayoon frowned, studying the bug. "If you insist on risking your lives for strangers, you should at least make sure someone's paying you."

"Not everything's about money. Not that I would expect you to understand that," Moonhoo said. He'd summoned his flames. They were beautiful. They were ugly.

Gayoon sneered. Sure, the money had been convenient, and it wasn't as if he'd have worked for C.O. for free, but in the end, money was just money, like people were just people, like sex was just sex - all of it meaningless. Worthless. Even his ability - _Hall Dominator_, what a joke, what good was that going to do him, really, other than having some people willing to pay him a lot of money?

Chaeun was an idiot.

_I am not an idiot,_ Chaeun thought. Except perhaps for the bit where he'd honestly looked up to Gayoon, never realizing the truth.

"We have to - " he started saying, even if Moonhoo and even Gayoon had to know they needed to get a sample of whatever liquid the Bug had sprayed on him and Gayoon before.

Moonhoo flashed him a grin. "We'll get it. Don't worry. We'll have this asshole out of your head soon enough."

_Soon enough would have been two months ago,_ Chaeun thought, but at least he still knew it was him thinking it, not Gayoon.

_I have to stop waking up like this._ Chaeun closed his eyes, but then someone kicked the bed and he opened them again to find Gayoon glowering at him. _Was he actually ... worried about me?_

"Don't pretend you're sleeping when you're awake," Gayoon said.

_Don't - _ Chaeun started to think, then gave up, because he felt too tired and too sick to deal with Gayoon right now. "Did we get the sample?"

Gayoon hesitated and Chaeun felt his hopes sink. Moonhoo might have fooled around a bit, teasing him before reassuring him that of course they had, hadn't he promised they would?

"We didn't get a sample? Then - it was all for nothing?" He'd felt so lucky, so sure that for once, fate had decided to smile on him. He should have known better.

"We killed a level S Bug and a bunch of smaller ones, and I destroyed the Hall," Gayoon said. "I'm sure we saved a lot of people's lives. So, yes, it was all for nothing."

"I don't want you in my head!" Chaeun said. It felt like a relief, to say it out loud. "I don't want to know what you think or feel or how nothing in this world matters to you in the least!"

Gayoon hesitated again, longer this time, and then he said, "It wasn't the Bug."

For a few moments, Chaeun thought he'd missed the word 'right'. As in: 'it wasn't the _right_ bug'. "What do you mean?"

Gayoon shrugged. "It was something the C.O. labs cooked up. To enable teams to fight together better, some crap like that. It didn't work out as well as they'd hoped, so they never put it into production. I picked up some of the stuff before it got destroyed, just in case."

"You - _why?_ What would possess you to - ?" Chaeun had thought he was more or less done feeling angry and disappointed with Gayoon. _Just when I thought he couldn't sink any lower._

"I don't know," Gayoon said. "I mean, you're right." He chuckled. "What _was_ I thinking? Why would I even want to know what a loser like you is thinking or feeling?"

_Maybe because you've never felt anything for another person in your life,_ Chaeun thought, but that was too generous. _Maybe because you wanted to know what it was like to be normal._ So was that.

"Anyway, it's over now. I stopped," Gayoon said, making it sound like Chaeun should be grateful, should be thanking him for not slipping him some experimental drug anymore. "I still have some of the stuff. I'm sure I can find someone interested in taking it off my hands for the right price. Then - "

"You should leave now," Chaeun said. _Before Moonhoo finds out what you did._

"I wanted - " Gayoon shook his head. "Never mind. You and your core hunter have fun risking your lives for people who won't even know what you did. You'll probably end up dead in a year."

"I hope I never see you again," Chaeun said.

"You're sure he's gone?" Moonhoo asked, balancing two bags of groceries.

"Yes. I guess - maybe getting exposed to the same stuff solved the problem somehow." Chaeun squirmed a bit as Moonhoo stared at him. "I don't know. I'm just glad it's over."

"Hm." Moonhoo looked thoughtful.

_He doesn't believe me. He knows -_

"So does that mean we can spend the rest of the day in bed?" Moonhoo asked. "Because I've really missed - " Chaeun kissed him, pressed against the counter, almost making him drop the groceries.

_I really missed you, too._

"I guess that's a 'yes', huh?" Moonhoo grinned.

"Well, maybe not the whole day," Chaeun said.

"Good point. Variety's the spice of life, right? Plenty of other places around the house - and outside."


End file.
